Implementing a Simple Spectrum Scale/GPFS Single Node Cluster

Final Steps

Final steps include creating the filesystem.

Our filesystem will be gpfs0 with a client name of /gpfsfiles We are using the default blocksize of 512 with no replication -R2 says max of 2 replicas for data, -R2 says max of 2 data replicas We are only doing 1 replica (-r 1 and –m1)

You will also see a pool total that shows the total storage for that filesystem along with a section that shows details on the inodes in use, free, allocated and the maximum inodes you can have.

Next steps:

At this point, you’re ready to test the cluster by adding data to
the filesystem and testing access. You can also use the following
commands to document your cluster:
mmlsconfig
mmgetstate -aLs
mmlsnsd
mmlscluster
mmdf gpfs0

At this point, your cluster is ready to go. You can add additional nodes or just use it as a single node cluster, depending on your needs.

A Simple Alternative

This is a fairly simple implementation for a specific use but it can be used as the foundation for your SCALE environment and allows a scale up solution for a user who has huge filesystems and who needs the latency reduction you get with SCALE. If it becomes necessary to add additional nodes in the future that is easy to do. The next steps in our case are to add the samba and AD integration and to update some of the SCALE tunables, but as of right now we have a fully functional, well performing Spectrum Scale cluster. If you are having issues around JFS2 performance or scalabilty with respect to the size or number of files, or if you need to server out files to multiple systems while maintaining performance, then I would recommend getting a trial of Spectrum Scale. IBM offers the ability to use an Intel VM they provide or to trial it on your own systems. Spectrum Scale is supported on multiple operating systems including Windows, Linux, Linux on Power, Linux on Z and AIX. All of these can be in the cluster at the same time as long as they meet the required levels which can be found in the FAQ (frequently asked questions) document from IBM. The FAQ also provides documentation on the architectural limits on Spectrum Scale which are significantly higher than JFS2 filesystems.

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